Ragna+Beck


 * SUMMARY: Ragna Beck, age 24, died on July 18, 1911 after an abortion perpetrated in Chicago by C. M. Anderson, who was most likely a nurse or a midwife.**

On July 18, 1911, 24-year-old homemaker Ragna M. Jensen Beck, a Norwegian immigrant, died in Chicago from an abortion performed on May 9th by Mrs. C.M. Anderson. Anderson was held by the Coroner and arrested on July 19, but the case was stricken off during trial

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before //Roe vs. Wade// legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].



 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database



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